Blueberry cream cheese ice cream

I ran across this recipe on Pinterest, and since I had bought heaps of blueberries in peak season and wanted to try a blueberry ice cream recipe, I gave it a shot. It called for swirling in crumbled graham crackers at the end to further mimic the cheesecake effect, but I opted not to for texture reasons.

Blueberry cheesecake ice cream

Adapted from JoytheBaker.com

Ingredients

1 cup fresh blueberries

¼ cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons cornstarch

¼ cup water

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Pinch of salt

1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened

1 cup whole milk

1 cup whipping cream

1 cup lightly packed light brown sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon bourbon

Method

Stir together blueberries, granulated sugar, cornstarch, water, lemon juice and pinch of salt in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Cook, stirring frequently, until berries burst and the mixture thickens. Remove from heat. Cool in refrigerator. (Can be made a day ahead.)

Combine cream cheese, milk, cream, brown sugar, ¼ teaspoon salt and bourbon in a food processor until smooth. Transfer to an ice cream maker and process according to the ice cream machine instructions. The standard size Cuisinart model took about 25 minutes.

Transfer into a freezer-safe bowl. Add blueberry mixture and swirl it in. Chill in freezer.

Rating: In my food diary I not infrequently note whether a new recipe is CR, meaning company rated. The only reason not to make this recipe for company is it’s hard to discreetly lick the bowl. Very reminiscent of cheesecake without the crust, and very tasty indeed. Nice creamy texture, and not overly sweet. Next year I’m making more than one batch of this during blueberry season.

Grilled chicken with fresh tomato tarragon sauce, aka fast food

 

My version of fast food (aside from my browser having a path beaten to Pizza Luce's site), is something simple to fix that still tastes like you bothered to cook, like you didn't allow the world to defeat you. So I feel like I've snatched a moral victory over a bad day when I still manage to try a new recipe and not resort to the usual random acts of food. It means I've concentrated on what matters to me, and a decent supper can do a lot to improve a mood.

If I'm looking for quick inspiration, I haul out one of my Bon Appetit back issues for whatever month we're in and I'm apt to find something at least seasonal and serviceable. This recipe comes from chef Keith Luce, then at Spruce in Chicago. It dates from 1997, back when BA had both the 30-minute meal feature and the too busy to cook segment, and didn't have deplorable design and typography.

Bonus point for this recipe: It lets you pound things. Very therapeutic.

Grilled chicken breasts with tomato-tarragon sauce
Adapted from Bon Appetit, Sept. 1997

Ingredients

2 boneless chicken breasts

2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon, divided

2 ½ tablespoons olive oil, divided

3 cloves garlic,chopped, divided

1 large tomato, chopped

2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar

Method

Combine 1½ tablespoons tarragon, 2 tablespoons olive oil and 2 chopped garlic cloves in a shallow dish. 

Pound chicken breasts between waxed paper to a ½-inch thickness. Season with salt and pepper. Place in oil mixture. Turn to coat and let rest 10 minutes while you heat up the grill. 

Combine remaining ½ tablespoon tarragon, 1 clove chopped garlic, ½ tablespoon olive oil, tomato and vinegar in a food processor. Pulse to combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Grill chicken breasts on medium high heat for about 4 minutes a side or until cooked through. Transfer to a plate. Spoon sauce around chicken breasts.

Rating: Perfectly fine fast food. The chicken is quite tasty and the sauce isn't bad. But if you've ever had a version of this that used roasted red peppers instead of fresh tomato, you'll find yourself missing that smoky element. Next time.

And remember, as Murphy Brown's character once told an aspiring student: "Don't let the buttheads win."

Zucchini salad with feta, tomato and olives

I confess that in the height of my low-carb campaign, I broke down and bought a spiralizer. That's one of those handy things that make quick work of turning zucchini into zoodles. What are zoodles? Long thin, spaghetti-like cuts of zucchini or other tender squash. What are they not? Spaghetti. Make no mistake about that. Zoodles, or spaghetti squash, make a rotten substitute for actual gluten-laden pasta that slurps up delicious sauces.

That doesn't mean zoodles can't be tasty. You just have to come to peace with what they're not or you'll wind up pissed off at the universe that you can't/shouldn't be eating pasta.

Since I've eased off a bit on my rigid low-carb regime, I was looking for some way to use my spiralizer that didn't make me resentful. This salad with its zippy dressing is a perfectly fine way to enjoy curly bits of zucchini without howling at the moon.

Greek zucchini salad

Inspired by the Garlicky Greek Salad I've made for years from the October 1994 Bon Appetit.

Ingredients

3 zucchini or summer squash, ends trimmed

½ cup pitted Kalamata olives

½ cup crumbled feta cheese

½ cup cherry or grape tomatoes, halved

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 teaspoons red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon chopped garlic

6 tablespoons olive oil

Method

Cut zucchini into thin strips by whatever means you have at hand. A spiralizer is really handy, but not essential. (A peeler or hand-held cutter works, but it takes a while and you really need to watch out that you don't take off your fingers.) Toss zucchini ribbons with olives, feta and tomatoes.

Mix together lemon juice, vinegar and garlic. Add olive oil in a thin stream and whisk until emulsified. Toss with zucchini ribbons.

Bacon potato salad

Most of our picnics are transported in motorcycle saddlebags, or in a car in a 40-quart cooler. So sometimes I forget about the concept of just walking to a picnic table, several of which are in easy range of our home.

Sunday offered perfect weather, with a glorious breeze and only wispy clouds. We unloaded our backpacks at a table we've walked not far from hundreds of times, but never stopped at before. It offered a view of the lake and this unusual view of the willow with a seeming hole in it, something we've never noticed because we never stopped in just that spot.

Lyonnaise Potato Salad
Adapted from "The Picnic," by Marnie Hanel, Andrea Slonecker, and Jen Stevenson, founders of the Portland Picnic Society. This book elevates the simple picnic into an art form. It captures all things picnic related, from recipes to presentation to food safety and more. This is the first recipe I've tried from this inspiring book, and I look forward to trying several more.

Ingredients
1 pounds small potatoes
3 tablespoons olive oil (or less, depending on how fatty your bacon is)
4 ounces bacon, sliced crosswise into 1/4-inch strips
1 large shallot, chopped

1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley, divided
1 hard-cooked egg
salt and pepper

Method
Slice potatoes in half if quite small, or in quarters if fingerling size. Place in a pot filled two-thirds full of salted water. Bring to a boil and simmer until just tender. Drain and transfer to a bowl.

Cook bacon in a skillet until crisp, adding 1 tablespoon olive oil if you have very lean bacon. Remove bacon strips to bowl with potatoes, leaving oil in pan.

Saute shallots until just softened; you don't want them crispy. Add to bowl with potatoes, reserving oil.

Stir vinegar, mustard, thyme and most of the parsley into baking fat. Add oil and fresh pepper as desired. Toss with potato mixture.Cover and refrigerate. (Can be made a day or two ahead.) Shortly before serving, grate on the egg over the top and garnish with remaining parsley.

Rating: Delightful. The vinegar-bacon combo always turns into something that's like meat candy. The grated egg works perfectly in this recipe. And admittedly, having a fresh supply of lemon thyme to use in this recipe was probably cheating.

To go with the potato salad, we had guacamole turkey sandwiches and green bean-cherry tomato salad with kalamata vinaigrette from the July 2001 Bon Appetit. We're still overrun with pole beans and have lots of little cherry tomatoes, and this salad is a fine enough use. The dressing in particular has lots of other uses.

Singapore sling mocktail

Somewhere in the attic, there's a piece of paper scrawled with the words "Singapore Slings, with love, from Guam." This obscure sign was among those those taped on the walls of our dorm hall in a silent raid, back when that phrase had nothing to do with illegal immigrants. How it was that young males thought silently plastering the hallways of a girls dorm with signs would get them to come to a party, I don't know, although in my case it actually might have worked.

Tastes change over time, but in college years the fruity, slightly sweet Singapore Sling was something I enjoyed. It was still legal to have mixed-drink mixers in dorms, and most women viewed that as a step above keg parties, this being eons before craft beer proliferated. So that sign may well have tipped the balance to get me to show up. For the record, the Singapore Sling I had that night was really pretty nasty. But I married the guy who mixed it anyway. Oh, and the from Guam part turned out to be his roommate, Pido.

Anyway, nostalgia was enough to make me pause to consider this recipe for a PG-13 Singapore Sling. Because sometimes a mixture involving four kinds of alcohol isn't what the doctor ordered.

PG-13 Singapore Sling
Adapted from Bon Appetit, August 2013

Ingredients

 ¾ cup pomegranate juice

½ cup mango juice

½ cup pineapple juice

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

Tonic water, ice

Method

Combine juices in an ice-filled pitcher. Pour among Collins glasses filled with ice, adding 2 to 3 ounces tonic water to each. Garnish with lemon balm, mint or pineapple sage, if desired. 

Rating: This doesn't taste, or look, remotely like a traditional Singapore Sling, but it is refreshing. And it's a lot better than the nasty one someone made me back in dorm days.